


All for One

by PaladinofFarore



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 20:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12967869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaladinofFarore/pseuds/PaladinofFarore
Summary: High school is hard.Doubly so when you've spent your life as a lab rat to a government conspiracy.After all that's happened, Eleven just wants to live a normal life with the family she's formed around her. It was going well. D&D with the guys was fun. She was learning new things about the world. But then fall came around. And with it, strangeness.Weird visions. Figures from the past. Monsters from the Upside Down and beyond.The others have it hard too. From Mike's deteriorating family, Steve's thoughts about his future, to Will, who keeps having visions about a world on fire and a woman in a trench-coat.Oh, and a new teacher who might be a time traveler.1985 was going to be a wild school year





	All for One

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a big idea I've had in my head for a while. This chapter was going to be longer, but I wanted to get something out.  
> This is gonna be a long one, and it will use some concepts and a few characters (though not in major roles) that qualify this as a crossover. I'm not tagging those yet because its a spoiler. Though one character has been named.  
> Ten bucks to anyone who guesses who our time traveler is.

The abyss was empty. A white expanse of nothing that stretched from one eternity to another. 

And then, in one moment like any other, two forces fell through the abyss. 

They were two opposing storms. Forces that convulsed and swirled like great rain clouds across the plains, thunder and lightning crackling around them and shaking the white nothing into semi solid form. 

YOU FLEE

One of the forces said. 

It did not speak. It undulated with a deep, rippling sensation that sounded, or rather felt, like the deepest possible voice. 

Red and black rippled around it like thick, goopy waves. Like tar. Bloody tendrils streamed around it like ribbons. 

Malice. That was it was. 

“I do what I must,” replied the force that opposed it. Her voice was that of a human woman. Unlike her opponent she was flesh and blood and bone. 

Under normal circumstances, her considerable power would be colorless. An invisible power weapon at her command that could shape the world around her. 

But here, outside of everything, it was blue and blazing white likes the hottest of flames. 

She was blazing so brightly now that she would surely go out. 

YOU HAVE LOST

The force told her. Mocking, full of contempt.

A day earlier, she’d have lashed out. 

There was little point to that now. It had taken everything already. Now all she could do was try and salvage what was left. Of what was. Of what could be, and could’ve been. 

“Where I’m going, nothing has been decided yet.”

Back. Back to when she understood nothing. When the monsters that crawled from the other side were simply beasts to be slain and not something so much greater and terrible.That was where she was going. 

I AM INEVITABLE. YOU KNOW THIS. WHATEVER POWERS YOU AND YOURS MAY HAVE WORKED, I WILL NOT BE STOPPED. 

Its, his, she could only think of it as male despite the fact that it defied all conceptions of human gender, was right. 

Nevertheless, she continued downward. 

The void turned and whirled. An ocean that encompassed everything. When she blinked, she saw stars. She saw the beginning and she saw the end. And then, she saw it all stop, and shift backwards. 

“I will not lose again,” she told the force. “I will find where you root yourself, and I will end you.” 

YOU WILL BURN

Almost a laugh. Though it was incapable of humor. 

“So be it,” she said. 

And with a mighty tug, she reached with all that she was, and pulled. 

She snapped forward across the void. The malignant red mass that pursued her was lost behind her as she flew. 

Her skin was on fire. 

Every molecule of her body died and was reborn in that instant. For a long moment she fell asleep. Or into a sensation that felt much like sleep. 

She dreamt of that had happened.

A tear fell down her cheek. 

She hadn't thought she’d be able to cry. 

Thunder cracked, and she landed. 

The impact was actually quite soft.  
The gateway had opened at an angle facing down, depositing her into the warm August air of an Indiana forest. Insects were out in mass this time of year. Mosquitoes and cicadas roamed the dim evening in miniature clouds. 

When she finally managed to stand and dust herself off, she casually put up a barrier that kept them at bay. 

She looked around. 

Dense with greenery, tinted with orange-pink of the setting sun that lay beyond the canopy, the forest was a snapshot of a time she’d long forgotten. All of it came back at once. Memory upon memory that linked together in a chain that bound her whole life together. 

That was when she let herself cry. 

Dropping the heavy bag she carried she sank to her knees and let the tears shatter her face into a mask of wet streaked red. 

Everything, everyone, was gone. Anger mixed with the despair. 

Around her the trees shook. Limbs broke and fell to the ground. Trunks began to bend and sway. The wind gathers. 

She stops. 

The tears cease, leaving her face a cracked, wrecked mess, but it is still. 

“No,” she says aloud. 

The movement around her stops. 

There is no time for that. If she lets it out now, she will be stuck. Immobile, incapable of moving forward. And now, she must act. Before what she left behind has time to put itself into motion once again. 

She stands, shouldering her bag and beginning her way out of the forest. 

As she moves she adjusts her sleeve so that it covered the sleeve of tattoos that covered her arm from elbow to wrist. 

From her pocket she pulls a folded picture.

This one indulgence she can allow herself. 

She hopes it will give her motivation. 

She glances at the four people in the picture, smiling, happy, oblivious. 

Another tear breaks through and she puts it away. 

A long sigh escapes her lips, the warm summer air flowing through her tangled hair that fell nearly to her waist. 

This place brings her as much peace as it does sadness. So many memories are forever linked to Hawkins Indiana, the small backwater town where everything had started.

Amazing, when you think about it. 

How the small doings of a tiny town in a state most people didn’t give a thought to had somehow escalated into something that would encapsulate the entire world. 

By the time the new millennium rolled around, the whole world new the place by name. 

Now, in 1985, it was just a blip on the map. Only notable for having a government lab shut down for some sort of contamination. 

The woman let out another breath. 

If she remembered correctly, fall would come early this year, to be followed by a bitterly cold winter. That recollection pushed her forward. 

She needed to be prepared for what was coming. 

Interference would come soon. No doubt he had followed her and made what changes he could. 

Perhaps by then, her heart would be ready for it. 

She doubted it. 

There was no doubt in her mind that she would be destroyed by the end of it. Her goal was not survival, but leaving enough pieces for those left behind to pick up and maybe make into something livable. 

“Thanks Caulfield,” she whispered like a prayer. “I’ll buy you something nice, when you’re born again.” 

She had a good ten years to save up for that occasion.

011

One month later

Jane L Hopper wasn’t certain who was more nervous about this. 

Her, or the man sitting next to her. 

They sat together in his police cruiser on the edge of the high school parking lot. A crowd of kids, drenched in the morning light, with summer's dying breath on their face, made their way towards the front entrance. Lugging backpacks, talking with friends, showing off whatever car they’d driven their in. 

The usual thrum of adolescence. All of it covered in a layer of hormones and questionable decision making. 

She’d been preparing for this for months. Looking forward to it with bated breath and a sense of dread that came from tackling the unknown. 

Going to school was something she’d never done before. It was a sort of normalcy that she’d never had had. And she’d craved it deeply. 

Her friends and loved ones had done their best to help her get ready. 

Mike had visited the cabin multiple times a week to help her get ready for classes. 

He was good teacher, though the two of them had a habit of getting distracted by each other despite Hopper’s strict open door policy. 

Max and Nancy had taken her clothes shopping.

El was infinitely grateful that she’d managed to befriend the tomboyish redhead. 

Much as she loved the boys there was a...difference, when it was just her and the other girl. A change in tone that she couldn’t quite describe. The way they talked to each other. The tone of conversations. 

And thanks to Max, she had plenty of cool clothes to compliment the sun dresses Nancy had helped her pick out. Today she wore jeans and a t-shirt with a band whose name she didn’t recognize. 

Her hair had grown in length in the last year, the dense curls reaching her shoulders in a thick curtain. 

Everything was perfect and ready to go. 

Yet she was still nervous. 

The whole town knew about her now, even though she’d only been seen by her friends. In preparation for her entry in society proper Hopper had been spreading word of his new adopted daughter.

According to the story, she’d been a foster child sold into a forced labor ring, passed around and marked like cattle until the whole thing had been upended. With nowhere to go, Hopper had taken her in. 

As far cover stories went it was fairly solid. It explained why she’d appeared from seemingly nowhere with no family in sight, and why she had a number tattooed on her arm. 

No one dared to look into it any further. After all, why would they deepen the trauma of a fourteen year old girl who was just beginning to live a normal life?

She’d waited most of a year now, practically bouncing off the walls with anticipation and frustration. 

The two sat in silence a moment longer. From their position they could see Mike waiting by the bike racks, stepping back and from foot to foot nervously. 

Hopper spoke first. 

“If anything happens, you call me. Got it?”

She nodded. 

“Got it.” 

She wouldn’t need him. She knew that. Foreboding as school was, unknown as it was to her, she’d faced far worse on her own. But she appreciated his concern. It was nice. Having people who cared. 

He leaned over and gave her a one armed hug. 

“You gonna ask me?” he said it with a dry wryness. 

“Ask you what?” she asked, returning the hug, trying, and failing, to feign ignorance. Of all the new things she’d learned over the last year, lying to Hopper wasn’t one she’d mastered. He was the chief of police after all. It was probably a good thing he was good at picking up on things. 

“You left one of those one your bed.” He pointed at a cluster of about a dozen flyers pinned to the large wooden bulletin board outside the schools front doors. 

FALL FEST 1985 was printed in huge block lettering, with the date marked for the following weekend. The image of a ferris wheel was outlined alongside some multicolored leaves

El sighed. 

“Can I go?” 

Mike had asked her just yesterday. From what he’d described it sounded wonderful. Rides, games, something called cotton candy. She felt an ache in her chest whenever such events came around. The desire to get out into the world, and not be in a box any longer. 

Hopper sighed, pulling back his arm. 

She hated that look. That skeptical, considering look he always had whenever she asked him something like this. It made sense for him to worry. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. 

“Ok,” he said. 

She tried to not to look shocked. She failed, eyebrows shooting up. 

Hopper had always been strict about her movements. Visits to the Wheelers and Byers were always very specifically timed, and the utmost caution was taken any time it was possible she could be seen. 

She’d thought this might change when she started school. But not this quickly. 

Hopper was smiling. 

“You can go, kid. You deserve a night out after being cooped up with me for so long. And besides, I gotta go to that thing anyway. Keep an eye on things.” 

She grinned, a wry thought crossing her mind. 

“Are you going with Joyce?” 

He rolled his eyes, though she could see a smile curl on his lips. 

“We talked about this kid. Joyce and I are just friends.”

She rolled her eyes right back at him. 

That was a lie. Usually she hated lies, but she decided to let it slide. People, she’d noticed, liked to not tell the truth about their feelings. She didn’t really understand that.

She liked Mike, after all. Why shouldn’t she tell people? 

She’d seen the way that her adoptive father, and the woman who, in her heart, was the mother she always wanted, looked at each other. The way they laughed with each other and smiled at one another. They reminded her of herself and Mike. People could be really frustrating. 

“Right,” she said, nodding nonchalantly and opening her door. One last time she leaned in and hugged him with one arm. “See ya.” 

“See ya Ellie. Good luck.”

With that she stepped out of the car and into the next part of her life. 

011

Mike had not been having a good day.

This was evidenced by the fact that he’d actually been looking forward to school. Sure, he’d been looking forward to it for El’s sake. She was finally joining the world after spending so long cooped away from everyone. 

But today he’d actually slipped out of the house early, skipping breakfast entirely. 

He couldn’t take the screaming anymore. 

It had been happened for ages. The better part of the last few months. But until the last week or so it had been just once every couple of days. A blow up at dinner. A shouting match as he tried to fall asleep, head buried under his pillow. 

Now it was almost everyday. 

He hated himself for leaving Holly sometimes. Disappearing in the afternoons to El’s or to one of the guys houses. But he had to get away. 

If he stayed any longer, if he stayed in the room, his dad's anger would always turn to him. 

Be a man.

The phrase resounded in his skull like the beating of drums. 

Be a man, Michael.

His father's face made him sick. 

The two of them barely spoke. Only pithy remarks at dinner. Or when Ted decided to corner him and scream about how worthless his interests were, and how he'd better try out for football this year. The lines of the mans face, the shape of his glasses and the creases of his skin haunted him. 

Another face, however, made him forget it entirely. 

When he saw El come bouncing across the parking lot towards him, curls dancing, he felt all of that melt away. His parents deteriorating marriage is now a distant figment of reality, and all he can feel is the pumping of his heart and the elation that she brought him. 

She was so damn beautiful. 

Sometimes it still felt unreal, her being back. He’d spent so long waiting, sobbing into his walkie talkie that her presence almost felt like a dream. A fairytale that couldn't possibly be his real life. 

Yet here she was. 

“Mike!” she said, bubbly and smiling. She kissed him on the cheek. 

“El!” he said, returning the kiss and giving her a quick hug. “You made it. Ready to go?” 

She nodded, pulling at her backpack straps. She looked around.

“Where are the others?”

“They had to go in already. Their lockers are kinda far away.”

Mike was eternally grateful to the chief for the strings he’d pulled at the school. 

Since El had never attended school before, he’d arranged it so that she had a student partner to help her acclimate to the new surroundings, Mike. Their lockers were across from each other and they would have the same homeroom teacher. 

They’d be with Mr. Kent today. He’d heard good things from him about Nancy. 

El nodded again and took his hand. 

He smiled at her. 

Maybe he could do this whole teenager thing, if she was with him. 

“Hopper said yes to Fall Fest,” she told him, as they made their way into the school building amidst the growing crowd. 

“That’s great!” he said. He’d been nervous about that. 

He and the chief got on okay, but there was always that slight layer of tension. He was dating the man's daughter, after all. 

“We can plan for it tonight with the guys. Still up for the campaign?”

She nodded eagerly. 

Dungeons and Dragons was very, very fun. They’d been playing in the cabin for the last few months and El had taken to it eagerly. A mage was a fun class to play. Especially when paired with Will’s cleric. 

The hallways were packed.

New students, old students, all funneling towards their lockers. Talking, chatting, throwing things across the hall. It was a madhouse. 

When she was no more than a hundred feet into the hall the whispers started. 

That was to be expected, after all. She’d been the subject of a lot rumors lately. 

The sheriff suddenly having a daughter out of nowhere? That caused talk. 

Where had she come from? 

Why was she wearing her hair like that?

Sprinkled in with this were comments about her body. 

Anxiety pooled in her stomach. 

This was going to be hard, wasn’t it?

A group of girls stared at her as Mike walked her to her locker. They didn’t approach her. That would come later, when she was alone. 

She squeezed Mike's hand.

She'd faced monsters beyond the worst of nightmares. Yet here she was, felling nervous under the gaze of fourteen year old girls. 

011

There was a surprised murmur as the pair entered homeroom. 

Max was already there, and they took the seats beside her. 

“What’s going on?” asked Mike, glancing at the whispering students around them. 

“Teacher change,” the redhead explained. “Mr. Kent took a leave of absence or something. We get someone new instead.” 

As if on queue, this someone new arrived. 

“Ok, ok everyone, quiet down,” said a clear, almost melodic voice. 

The students quieted, though they still whispered. 

The new teacher was a positively tiny woman. Mike already stood at least two inches taller than her. Her hair, brown-black, was tied into a long braid that fell to her waist. She wore a blue dress patterned with flowers and a pair of horn rimmed glasses. 

One of her arms was covered in tattoos from wrist to elbow. A blue butterfly stood out among them. 

“Hello everyone,” she said evenly. “I know you were all expecting Mr. Kent, but unfortunately he had a family issue and had to step out. My name is Mrs. Lindstrom and I’ll be your homeroom teacher this semester.” 

She turned and wrote her name on the board in long curled letters. 

Turning back she gave the class a smile. 

El thought that she was very pretty. 

“Well, before we get to know each other any better, we’d better start with role call.” 

With fine proficiency she started calling names. 

The way she stood was firm. Sort of like an army commander, were it not for the dress and the hand pressed to her hip. 

“Hopper, Jane,” she called. 

El opened her mouth to speak, but then she met the new teachers eyes. 

For reasons she wouldn’t understand for quite some time, she felt cold. 

It felt like the woman was looking through her. Gazing into her soul. 

“H-here,” she sputtered, barely getting the words out. 

The woman smiled. 

The smile was familiar.


End file.
